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Wiley stops publishing Canadian business books: Roseman

Canada’s book publishing market is shrinking. It’s facing competition from online retailers and electronic books that you can read on phones, tablets and dedicated e-readers.

Here’s a sign of the decline. Wiley Canada is suspending its local operations — except for sales and marketing — and centralizing its professional and trade publishing in the United States.

“This is difficult news to deliver and absorb,” said an email last week from long-time Wiley editor Karen Milner, who will lose her job on May 31.

“Wiley Canada will be making no new acquisitions, effective immediately, and all rights and obligations as outlined in your author agreements will be honoured by Wiley U.S..”

(Disclosure: Wiley Canada published my latest book, Fight Back, as well as two earlier ones, Money 101 and Money 201.)

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A subsidiary of John Wiley & Sons in Hoboken, N.J., Wiley Canada put out many business and personal finance books. Another specialty was hockey.

In recent months, it has sold off its consumer books — such as Ken Dryden’s The Game and Bob McKenzie’s Hockey Dad — to other Canadian publishers in order to focus on educational books for professionals.

“We knew Wiley was changing direction, but we’re very disappointed to hear it’s shutting down the Canadian publishing division,” said Stuart Woods, editor of Quill & Quire, a book publishing trade magazine.

Earlier this month, Oxford University Press also shuttered its Canadian trade publishing division to focus on educational titles, he added.

Fred Vettese is co-author of The Real Retirement: Why You Could be Better Off than You Think, and How to Make That Happen, which was published by Wiley Canada last December (when my book came out).

“I was certainly surprised and dismayed to hear that Wiley is going to be discontinuing its Canadian publishing operation,” said Vettese, chief actuary at Morneau Shepell, a human resources firm based in Toronto.

“I honestly don’t know what it means yet, but would speculate that getting Canadian business books published will be more difficult from now on.”

Wiley Canada has almost half of the top 20 bestselling retirement titles at Amazon Canada. Authors include Vettese, Jean Blacklock, Daryl Diamond, David Trahair and Diane McCurdy.

Wiley also put out a funny personal finance book last March that sold well, 10 Ways to Stay Broke … Forever, by Laura McDonald and Susan Misner, founders of Golden Girl Finance, a website for Canadian women.

John Wiley & Sons, founded in 1807, is the 12th largest global publisher. Jesse Wiley, a seventh generation descendant of the founder, recently joined the U.S. board.

Last year, it sold its travel publishing arm (including the Frommer’s brand) to Google and its celebrated cookbooks (including the Betty Crocker series) to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

“With the recent divestment of our consumer businesses, our publishing program in Canada has been reduced,” said Linda Dunbar, head of Wiley’s corporate media relations.

“We therefore decided to discontinue publishing operations in Canada and to merge the remaining product lines with their global counterparts.”

Sean Neville owns Books for Business, a retail store in downtown Toronto that closed its doors in early 2012 after 20 years to become an online bookseller exclusively.

He’s making $1 million in annual revenue by choosing certain areas, such as bulk sales to large companies, which big retailers don’t monopolize.

“I like business as a category,” Neville says. “The audience will pay if you sell something valuable that meets a need.

“A physical book works well as a reference source. You can use Post-it notes and fold down pages. Even the spine is a reminder of a book you should read. You don’t have that with an ebook.”

Wiley owns the Dummies brand and has published many Canadian books in the series, such as Investing for Canadians for Dummies. Let’s hope it keeps these books in print in the long term.

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